Solid Body Fountain with Bubinga trim ring

[vick]

This a Scerw Cap Fountain pen made out of Maple Burl, with a Bubinga trim ring. A couple of first for me I made this with a pin chuck, and I had never done the custom trim ring before. I would be curious to hear from anyone else that has done the trim rings their method. I went through almost an entire Bubinga blank to get the ring. All in all a couple little problems but I am happy.

As alway comments and/or critiques are welcome.

 

[pastorbill1952]

Outstanding pen. Love the wood combo. Would like to read how you made the CB.

 

[rtjw]

Great job on the pen. Beautiful finish. What did you use?

 

[ctEaglesc]

I love it!
Nice clean lines and simplicity.
I do have a concern about the wooden accent band.
Did you do anything to "harden" it?
Under normal use there may not be a problem, but I have made loose center bands for slimlines that eventually cracked.
On those now I always add a section on tube.
Is the decorative wooden band glued to the metal beneath it?
Excellent,classy looking writing implement

 

[alamocdc]

Sharp pen, Mike! I really like it.

 

[PenWorks]

Great job Mike, never made a custom ring like that. Pen looks very fine. []

 

[Rifleman1776]

Some very creative thinking went into that pen. Beautiful end result. I may try a trim ring like yours. I do agree that a tube section might be wise for strength.

 

[dubdrvrkev]

Looks great Mike. F&F look awesome.
By "pin chuck" do you mean like a collet chuck or pin jaws on the SN or..?

 

[JimGo]

Very pretty Mike! It flows nicely, and the finish looks great!

 

[wayneis]

Very nice work Mike, I like the wood band it really adds a lot to the pen. When I made the malichite ring for the pen that I entered in the contest for the Rendezvous I first found a bushing that was the same size as the centerband and then drilled out the malichite. I put about a 1" square piece of malichite on the bushings and turned it round. I then parted it about half way through the block leaving the ring attatched. I then sanded the ring with MM like I do with and pen and finealy I parted the ring the rest of the way. The first time that I did it I got all the way to the final part cut and it broke so I had to make a couple. The rings that I did were about 1/16" wide. That pen ended up taking third place and it was also a closed end pen similar to yours but I did put the clip on and instead of the metal finial that came with the kit I turned my own out of wood to match the pen.

Wayne

 

[vick]

Thanks everyone []

rtjw - The finish is CA. I have been experimenting with others but keeping coming back to CA.

eagle - the band was "hardened using thin ca followed by medium ca. I did not glue it to the metal underneath but that is a good idea. This is now my new desk pen so that I can see about the band durabilty before selling any.

Kevin - The link below is the conversation on pin chucks that convinced me to try them. The second link that its_virgil supplied explains best IMHO. I do not have a collet chuck so I hold my pin chuck in my jacobs chuck (drillchuck).
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8966&SearchTerms=pin,chuck

edited in - I will post my method for cutting the band in a little while. Have to work[]

 

[badwin]

That is a beautiful pen and the trim ring is awesome
Brian

 

[vick]

Pastorbill - finally have time to try to explain how I made the ring. I am not saying this is the best way but it worked for me. first let me explain I did not have any bushing or tubes that were an exact match of the part of the center band that this would slip on. I am assumeing that you know how the Berea 3 part centerbands work, if not let me know.

I found a drill bit that would make the proper sized hole so that the that the wood would just barely slip on the .

chucked a pen blank in my 4 jaw chuck, and turned the end closest to the tail stock to a little larger then the desired outside diameter.
I determined the desired width and took a parting tool and parted a tendon slightly smaller than my drill bit size (se picture). I then coated it in thin ca a couple time and medium ca once to harden the hole thing up. I then put my Jacobs chuck in the tail stock and slowly drilled out the hole. When you get all the way through the CB and het the tendon (that is smaller than the drill bit) the cb just pops onto you drill bit. The CB is very thin I stopped several times the let every thing cool down. With as thin as the CB is I wanted no heat to build up.
To finish I moved my Jacobs chuck to the head stock, found a bolt where the smooth metal part betwean the threads and the head was almost as big as the CB hole and wrapped some masking tape around it until the CB would sit tightly on it. Chucked it in the Jacobs and sanded and finished it.

<br />

Note - I felt the hole in the center band was a little to tight so I expanded it a little with some 400 grit sand paper wrapped around a tapered wooden dowel. I did not want to go up to my next drill bit size since you really do not have much wood to work with. Also I tried some thing similiar to what Wayne posted but I could not get it to work. Maybe on a softer wood his method would be prefered.

It really is a lot easier than it sounds. I might mention that I do not think a V point drill bit would work well. I am not sure the name for the ones I used, sorry. ( edited it -Spur point http://www.diydata.com/tool/drillbits/drillbits.htm#spurpoint )

 

[btboone]

Great job Mike. I make my wood inlay rings in pretty similar means to you or Wayne. I cut the outside first and extend a line from the end of the ring's arc enough for a cutoff tool, drill and bore the center, then cut it off at a very fine feed. I had to slow the rpm's way down because the part would sling off and get crushed on the wall of the lathe. I catch it with a wire when it's being cut off now. CA seems to work well with my rings.

 

[vick]

Bruce,
Glad to hear that my idea was not completely crazy. I am betting it did not take you as much wood as me to figure out your method [].

 

[btboone]

As you probably found out, some woods do much better thin rings than others! Some that seem to work well are olivewood, cocobolo, african blackwood, and cherry. Softer woods like walnut, birch, wenge and others don't seem to do as well. Fine and dense grain seems to be the thing to look for.

My big learning curve thing was figuring out how to hold the wood. My hydraulic chuck would just crush the wood if I gripped on it like normal, so I had to come up with an alternate means to do that.

 

[vick]

Bruce I had not found out yet, I have only made one so far. Thanks for the advice on the wood types. I definately want to do more of these.

 

[swm6500]

Outstanding pen Mike, I like it.

 

[woodscavenger]

I turn mine in a screw chuck. Sometimes I use a drill bit, other times a sharp skew and then use calipers or just use the metal fitting I am measuring to slide inside the ring.

 

[vick]

Shane,
Not sure I completely understand. Basically where I am using the 4 jaw chuck you are using the screw chuck to hold the wood to the head stock. Other than that are you turning to size then hollowing out? Are you cutting a tendon smaller than the hole to the proper width prior to hollowing?

By the way looked through your album today, excellent stuff.

 

[atvrules1]

Mike that is an incredible pen. Very nicely done. Finish is great and just shows off the burl and your ring perfectly. Keep these coming.